Free Syrian Army

Turkey and the United States have agreed on the outlines of a plan to rout the Islamic State group from a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border — a plan that opens the possibility of a safe haven for tens of thousands of displaced Syrians but one that also sets up a potential conflict with U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces in the area. The move further embroils Turkey, a key NATO ally, in Syria's civil war, and also catapults it into a front-line position in the global war against IS. A senior Obama administration official said Monday that U.S. discussions with Turkey about an IS-free zone focused on a 68-mile stretch still under IS control. The U.S. has been...

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Through a haze of dust obscuring the frontier, the flags of victorious Kurdish fighters and their allies fly over the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, newly wrested from Islamic State militants.
But amid the rejoicing that erupted in the Kurdish...

Kurdish fighters claimed to be closing in on Islamic State extremists holed up in a strategic Syrian frontier town Monday as Turkey was hit with a new influx of terrified civilians fleeing the fighting.
The developments came one day after thousands of...

A series of checkpoints and barriers cobbled together from tumbleweeds, discarded furniture and assorted urban detritus mark the path to one of the world's most storied sites: Aleppo's ancient covered market, the heart of the Old City.
Much of the...

Syrian authorities on Friday trumpeted the escape of dozens of soldiers trapped for weeks in a besieged hospital in a northern town even as Al Qaeda-linked militants said they had overrun the entire area and scored another victory against the government....

Eleven months after President Obama announced plans to arm opposition fighters to confront Islamic State militants in war-torn Syria, the $500-million program to train a proxy force has yet to begin, raising questions about its viability and...

U.S. officials continue to insist that our Middle Eastern allies are crucial to the fight against Islamic State and to other Middle Eastern conflicts. But are they? To judge by the chaos their help has created in Syria, we'd be better off without them.
...

A rebel force led by Islamist factions overran a major northwestern Syrian city on Saturday, rebel sources said, in what would represent an important victory for the country's beleaguered armed opposition.
The Army of Conquest, a coalition of Islamist...

The social media post features an odd incarnation of war booty: plundered sacks of dried lentils, humanitarian aid turned spoils of a punishing conflict.
"For the Syrian people from the United States of America," reads a label superimposed on a...

Since President Obama asked Congress in February for a new Authorization for Use of Military Force against Islamic State, the proposal has been under attack by hawkish members of Congress. “My goal is to do no harm to the war effort,” Sen. Lindsey...

Syrian forces fighting to push back opposition gains in the southern part of the country wrested control of a number of villages Friday, according to government and rebel accounts, as the military pressed an offensive south of Damascus, the capital.
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It's an organization most everyone loathes — except, of course, for its fanatical supporters — but few seem quite sure what to call it. ISIL? ISIS? IS?
Islamic State, the homicidal Al Qaeda breakaway faction that has declared a "caliphate"...

Since declaring a caliphate, Islamic State has garnered support from more than a dozen Islamist militant groups in the Middle East and Asia, but the dearth of endorsements by many of the largest and most recognizable groups serves to underscore the limits...

A group with ties to Al Qaeda has gained significant ground across Syria in recent weeks, creating the possibility that the war-ravaged nation will be divided among two opposing militant Islamic groups and the government of President Bashar Assad — with...

It is a time-honored tradition in American politics: Whenever the president turns unpopular, he fires someone and brings in a tried and tested veteran to clean house. Thus in 1987, in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair, out went Donald Regan as Ronald...

Soon after the young woman was released by the Syrian government in a prisoner exchange, activists began noticing the signs.
The woman's husband immediately divorced her. She rarely ventured outside her parents' house. Not long after, she left for...

American warplanes have struck for a third time an Al Qaeda-linked extremist faction operating in Syria, the U.S. military's Central Command said Friday.
A single airstrike targeted the Khorasan group, Centcom said in a statement, referring to a...

The Islamic State militant group kidnapped and tortured dozens of boys in Syria this year, beating them with hoses or electrical cables and forcing them to watch videos of beheadings and combat, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday.
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The Obama administration's plan to raise a 15,000-strong rebel army in Syria has run into steep political and military obstacles, raising doubts about a key element of the White House strategy for defeating Islamic State militants in the midst of a...

Some rebel reinforcements reached the besieged Syrian city of Kobani, officials said Wednesday. But the main force of fighters from Iraqi Kurdistan, aiming to help fellow Kurds battle Islamic State militants, was said to be still en route as night...